Our Father’s Day tradition started when my daughter was just about four weeks old. Somehow in my post-c-section sleep deprived haze, it occurred to me that the best Father’s Day present ever would be a gorgeous picture of myself and the new babe. Of course, since I decided this the week before the actual event and had no idea how to go about finding a decent photographer, I went with the only option that offered itself to me—The Picture People at the mall.

I dressed my tiny baby in a cute outfit, packed two more in case of bodily fluid incidents, grabbed her tiny comb to tame her three wild hairs, and, as an afterthought, put on my least maternity looking maternity clothes. Then we headed to the mall, which was teeming with other families on the hunt for the perfect “We love you Daddy” gifts.

Well over an hour and three outfits later we were done with the photo shoot. The following Sunday I gave my husband his first ever Father’s Day gift—a close up picture of me holding my naked baby up next to my face. It’s not the best picture ever taken. We both look a little tired and worse for the wear. She’s naked because I only brought two outfits, not three. But if you tilt your head a certain way, you can see that she’s almost smiling and you can see the love in my eyes.

That photo lives on my husband’s desk at home. The Father’s Day photos that we have taken since are displayed in his office at work. Now there are three of us in the shots and all of us are fully clothed. You no longer have to squint to see the hint of a smile, but the love in our eyes is still clearly there to see, even if mommy always manages to look like she’s been through a tornado. No amount of hair smoothing ever manages to completely hide the effort it takes to take two little girls to have their picture taken. That’s OK, Daddy still loves his present, or at least he has the good sense to say he does.